"Well, hurry back and brighten the fire, while I rush out and get the fish."
He fled back up the stairs, his slippers flapping. She left her roll of music in the concierge's care and darted out into the street, market-bag in hand. Twenty minutes later the fish were being disposed with a religious care on a bed of chopped parsley, shallots, mushrooms and butter. Biron shoved the baking-pan tenderly into the oven, wiped the sweat from his face, and stopped storming at his wife.
"You were not to blame, after all, Mélanie," he told her magnanimously, and with a long breath, "But it was a close call, by God, a close call."
In the salon Marise was pouring an apéritif for her father, brightly dishing up the news of the day with the sauce of lively comment, and saying nothing about culinary close calls. Her father listened to her, sipping his Dubonnet with an air of intense satisfaction. He took plenty of time for it, allowing each mouthful to deliver all its complicated burden of tang and bitterness and heat before he took another one into his mouth.
"Excellent stuff, Dubonnet," he said appreciatively.
"I'm glad you like it," said Marise. She envied her father his enjoyments. They were, comparatively speaking, so easy to get.
Looking at her seemed to remind him of something. He reached into a vest pocket (with some difficulty, for his vests were more and more tightly packed with each year of good living), and took out a little jeweller's box.
"It's your birthday to-day," he remarked, taking another careful sip of his apéritif.
Marise looked at the present, a little wrist-watch, from a very good house.
"Oh, that's awfully good of you, Father," she said, trying it on.